


I Got Friends On The Other Side

by violent_ends



Category: Book of Life (2014), Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Día de los Muertos | Day of the Dead, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar Bonding, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar Friendship, Ella's abuela loves Lucifer, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Halloween Challenge, Lucifer goes to Mexico, Mayan Mythology - Freeform, Mexican culture, References to Aztec Religion & Lore, implied minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violent_ends/pseuds/violent_ends
Summary: Ella’s grandma invites her granddaughter to celebrateel Día de los Muertosin her Mexican hometown and asks her to get her devilishly handsome colleague to come along for the trip. During the celebrations, Lucifer unexpectedly comes across a couple of old supernatural acquaintances.





	I Got Friends On The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> This is primarily a Lucifer fic, so it’s not strictly necessary for you to have seen _The Book of Life_, but the opposite probably is. I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies regarding _Día de Muertos_: I mean no disrespect to the culture and I will gladly correct any mistakes if you point them out to me. Of course, the premise here is that Ella’s family is originally from Mexico even though I don’t think it was ever specified in the show.
> 
> Written for the Filii Hircus Dem Bones challenge, prompt words: Día de los Muertos, graves/tombs. Set vaguely between S2 and 3.

“He is _so_ handsome, _mi niña_,” Ella’s grandmother gushes secretly (she thinks), one arm hooked around her granddaughter’s elbow as they step outside the Mexico City airport to get a taxi. “Find a way to marry him before someone else snatches him away!”

“Shhh, _abuelita, ¡por favor!_” Ella panicks, visibly aware of the way Lucifer is snickering next to them. “_¡No quiero que te oiga!_”

_I don’t want him to hear you_. Lucifer grins.

“_Ya es demasiado tarde para eso, querida_” he lets her know, nonchalantly turning to flick his thumb and middle finger at the nearest taxi driver. The old lady wanted them to take a bus to her hometown, but of course, Lucifer insisted for a much more comfortable arrangement and offered to pay for the ride.

_It’s too late for that, dear._

“Right, I forgot you’re a walking Duolingo app" Ella sighs exasperatedly, throwing her hands in the air before smacking them against her sides. “Well, lead the way, _señor_.”

The taxi ride is long but pleasant, mostly because chatting with Miss Lopez’s lively grandmother is the easiest thing in the world. She has her hair tied in a low bun and is wearing a floral dress, as she did when he met her at her granddaughter’s birthday party, the first one Ella celebrated after joining the LAPD. It didn’t take long for the elderly woman to decide Lucifer would be perfect husband material (which is probably the reason he was invited to join them), and her determination in constantly pointing it out is endlessly endearing and definitely amusing, if only for how it paints Miss Lopez’s cheeks a bright red.

“Please, call me Rosalita" she says against Lucifer’s insistence to stick to a polite _ma'am_, pinching his cheek. It’s not exactly a welcomed touch, but Lucifer figures he'll forgive her once his stomach is stuffed with delicious Mexican food.

The town they reach is buzzing with the enthusiasm of the upcoming celebrations, as people hang long paper garlands in the shape of skulls from one side of every street to the other. Mouthwatering smells drift from the small houses they pass by, most of them with their doors left open, and florists sitting behind stalls sell _cempasúchil_ flowers, whose strong-scented orange petals are believed to attract the souls of the dead to the _ofrendas_ set up by their living relatives, either on their graves or on private altars inside their homes.

Over his long life, Lucifer has become familiar with most of the human traditions regarding death and the afterlife, and this might be by far the most joyful and optimistic. He doesn’t know the extent to which Ella believes in the principles behind it, whether they coexist with her faith or not, but it suits her. The tiny forensic expert ushers him inside (more like pushes him) once they reach her grandma’s childhood home, where her sister Consuelo still lives. The whole family marvels at Lucifer’s perfect Spanish, and after lunch, Ella proceeds to walk him through her whole family tree.

“Great-grandfather Pedro died choking on a peanut,” she explains with comically wide eyes, pointing at an old yellowing picture in a frame on top of one of the private altar’s shelves, “but he _loved_ peanuts, so they keep leaving a bunch of them in a bowl for him. I mean, it’s not like he can die again, after all.”

“That seems like a _dreadful_ way to go. I should have included it in Hell's torture rotation, now that I come to think of it" he comments, and as expected, Lopez marches on without so much as an arched eyebrow at what she thinks is his method actor default setting.

“Great-grandmother María had a heart attack, and she loved her pearls, so there they are. Uncle Diego was in a car accident, and these are the last shoes he ever wore. You can pinpoint the marks and scratches on the leather, there, see?” she says almost excitedly, the passion for her job bubbling up to the surface no matter where she is.

The older pictures, mostly in black and white, are on the top shelf, and as you go down, they get more and more recent. It’s clear which one was added last, standing under all the others and perfectly colored.

“Grandpa José, he died a few months ago" Ella informs him quietly, noticing him staring. “That’s why grandma wanted to come here this year, where they buried him.”

Lucifer never had any grandparents, of course: Father was and is the very first father, and nothing existed before He did. Still, grief is something he can relate to, especially after Uriel, although it’s laced with much more complicated feelings.

“I'm deeply sorry for your loss, Miss Lopez" he says, tilting his head to the side to study her. She usually doesn’t shy away from recounting everything she thinks or feels at the precinct, but this, she kept for herself until now. It’s another thing he can relate to. Keep it hidden, and it won’t be there. Bury it, and it won’t resurface.

But like the dead supposedly do on the _Día de Muertos_, it _does_ resurface, and there are no guardian spirits – _alebrijes_ – to guide you in the dark unless of papier-mâché.

On the night of November 2nd, they all go to the cemetery. Rosalita presses her fingers over José's picture encased in his gravestone, and Lucifer looks away, a sense of quiet respect and reverence he rarely ever conceded to anything, anyone – not even Mum, not even Father. The losses humans experience, as small as they may seem compared to celestial drama, are overwhelming in this place, graves pressed together too tightly like there isn’t enough space to fit them, because there _isn’t_: only an ever-shifting place like Hell can have an infinite abundance of it.

“Wanna help out?” Ella asks him, offering him a bunch of marigold flowers she produced from a big plastic bag – a favor to her, and a distraction for him, whether she knows it or not.

They cover the tomb with flowers and candles, pour a shot of the man’s favorite tequila and place it under the letters of his name. Lucifer can’t help but wonder how many brands of liquor they would have to place on _his_ grave if he was mortal. His gaze moves away and around to marvel at everyone’s handiwork as the sun starts to set and the cemetery buzzes with more life than Lux on a busy night. The dead are not here, but the living seem comforted by the fact that they might be, and maybe it’s enough.

That’s when he sees him, standing tall and imposing in a part of the graveyard very few people visit anymore, where humans who died too long ago are buried and therefore lie now forgotten. So very fitting for Xibalba to be there. The red skulls dancing in the god's hollow eyes stop floating once they focus on Lucifer, his fluorescent green mouth spreading in a grin. He turns to walk away, behind the tall mausoleum that looms over the expanse of the cemetery, knowing Lucifer will follow.

“Apologies, Miss Lopez" he smiles to the side, adjusting his cufflinks. “An urgent matter arose. I'll be right back.”

Ella looks at him with a puzzled expression but decides not to say anything in reply as she watches him go. Lucifer carefully walks among the graves and the families hanging out in front of them, intent on not stepping on or knocking anything over with his feet. He turns the corner behind the mausoleum, and sure enough, there he stands.

The Lord of the Land of the Forgotten arches one white eyebrow at him, intrigued by his presence.

“Lucifer,” he intones with his deep, smug voice, “fancy seeing you here.”

“Hello, Balby" Lucifer greets him with a nickname he knows it’s not his place to use, all on purpose, of course. “It’s a pleasure. Although your fashion sense hasn’t improved since the last time, which is a pity.”

“And yours has gone to Hell, pun intended" Xibalba replies, the green flames of his crown's candles flickering in the spreading darkness of the approaching night. “The Prince of Darkness mingles with humans now? You look so... _mundane_.”

“What, you don’t like my suit?” Lucifer asks him, one hand on his chest as if deeply hurt. “That’s too bad. I'll remember to pack my very own conquistador armor next time I drop by; we can make it a date.”

Xibalba laughs, tiny skulls rattling where they hang from the horns that protrude from either side of his bone-white crown.

“I have to admit, I missed the banter with you" he chuckles, and to be honest, Lucifer has too.

“And where is that lovely wife of yours?” he teases with mischief, crossing his arms over his chest to settle more comfortably with one shoulder against the wall. As expected, Xibalba's mouth suddenly sets into a thin line, but the god tries not to take the bait.

“Oh, walking around to keep the candles lit, as usual, before we move to the next town" he says conversationally, before promptly trying to change the subject. “You’ll be leaving soon, I hope, yes? It’s too bad you left us such a meager kingdom to govern – now you want it for yourself, as well?”

Lucifer chuckles, he can’t help it. The memory is just too _funny_.

“And whose fault is that, mm? Certainly not mine, dear" he reminds him, recalling the bet he won against him, once all the demons and beasts of the night were tamed and he was starting to feel bored out of his mind. Xibalba couldn’t resist a wager, and Lucifer quickly learned he was very fond of deals, as he still is. A match made in- well, _Hell_.

“But do not fret, my very old, broody friend,” he then clarifies, “I have no interest in the few souls you and your lady rule over. I'm here on a short vacation, as it were. Nothing to do with you.”

Xibalba’s black wings, much similar to Amenadiel’s in shape and size, seem to sag in relief at the reassurance, losing their previous threatening stance.

“Very well, then. Off you go" the ancient god says with a shooing motion that is in such a stark contrast with his haunting appearance – seems like Lucifer isn’t the only one humans have rubbed off on.

As if knowing this is the right moment to intervene, an old lady turns the corner behind them and suddenly steps inside Lucifer’s field of vision, a candle cradled in her hands. Her mouth spreads in a smile of gleeful recognition, and in this moment, Lucifer knows she is no old lady. The woman's figure twirls in a vortex of bright orange marigold petals, and in the next instant, La Muerte stands before him, glowing eyes alight under her huge red sombrero.

“_Lusssifer_,” she gushes, dragging the sibilant sound of his name, one slender white hand flicking a lock of jet-black hair behind her shoulder. Lucifer catches said hand, startling her for a moment, to kiss it reverently.

“You've never been paler, darling" he purrs, grinning, and she chuckles breathlessly – it’s a game they both love to play, and it has the intended result whenever it sparks her husband’s thunderous jealousy, but Lucifer won’t deny: she is a lovely sight indeed, with her slender waist and generous hips, liquorice hair cascading almost all the way to her dress-covered feet. A sight that is inherently non-human, unlike his own façade when he wants it to be, what with the way the candles stuck along the hem of her red dress never seem to melt or die.

That’s why she transforms to move freely among mortals, a hobby her laconic husband has no intention of partaking in. She sees beauty in their faults and weaknesses, and thinks all deaths should be sweet and peaceful, a form of reward after a long, satisfying life. An otherworldly, almost ridiculously mismatched couple is what these two are, and since the beginning of time – although it’s unclear at what point they came into being, before or after or at the same time as Dear Old Dad.

“Watch it, loverboy" Xibalba warns him, stepping closer, his wings spreading behind him again. His face of black tar, shaped as a long skull, has lost any semblance of friendliness.

“Calm down, _mi amor_” chides La Muerte, removing her hand from Lucifer’s grasp to twirl one of her husband’s white moustaches between her long, skeleton-like fingers. “Wasn’t it nice of him to come say hi?”

“Yes, very nice. Just like the first time" Xibalba sulks, the irony in his voice mellowed out by his wife’s closeness.

The mentioned _first time_ takes Lucifer back to the grey wasteland of ashes and smoke he knows so well, the unwanted kingdom he acquired after the Fall. In time, entities of all kind came before the throne he had his demons build to ask for a piece of the pie, his permission to take a portion of Hell under their rule. Lucifer turned most of them, the weakest of them, away; and they retreated into the shadows, never to be known by any human, neither dead nor alive.

Others, he fought against, letting the result of the duel decide if and to what extent to grant them their wishes. But Xibalba, when he landed on the stone floor carrying his lady in his arms, had no intention of fighting. They were different back then, with names that later changed shape as they did: Mictlanteculhtli and Mictecacihuatl, both bare of the garments they would eventually decide to wear to embrace the beliefs of their own human worshipers.

Mictlanteculhtli, just a skeleton with wings in a cloak without all the pomp of more recent years, said that he and his Queen had a thing for wagers – a concept Lucifer actually learned from _them_.

“We heard you are what is called an archangel, and that you, too, have wings. My lady here is very fond of truth, and never cheats. Show her your wings: if she likes them more than mine, we’ll be on our way, but if she likes mine more than yours, you’ll gives us your kingdom.”

“Why not just send you on your way, then?” he spat, annoyed, defiant, exhausted by the constant stream of self-entitled beggars.

“Because it will be fun" said Mictecacihuatl, and Lucifer hadn’t had fun in a while.

True to her companion's word, she did not lie, another quality Lucifer found most interesting. But he didn’t want to leave them empty-handed, he decided as he laughed in delight at the death god's disappointment. And so it was that for the first time, he gave up a part of Hell willingly, like a gift.

“You shall make it so that a group of humans, in a place of your choosing, starts believing in you, and those mortals will belong to you once they cross the threshold of the afterlife, if they are to be damned. As long as you keep the belief in your existence alive in even a single sinning soul, that soul will be yours.”

That’s why, together, they now rule on the Land of the Remembered and the Land of the Forgotten, respectively: La Muerte on those people who, despite their sins, keep receiving food and flowers and gifts even in death, and Xibalba on the souls of people who did not leave a mark in life, or whose memory faded away through the cracks of time as their family tree kept growing up and outwards.

The Lady of Death made a Heaven out of her hellish kingdom, making it so that in the offerings of their loved ones, the damned may find peace and forgiveness. No such luck to the forgotten, instead, who share the same fate of the souls trapped in the rest of the Underworld’s cells.

And only now, as he looks at the two deities, Lucifer actively contemplates the inevitable death of Ella and her sweet grandmother, but he realizes he doesn’t have to worry: Azrael will either fly them to Heaven or to the Land of the Remembered, because let’s be honest, no way in hell people will ever forget the T-shirt-clad tsunami that is Ella Lopez, not even in one thousand years. And Lucifer will make sure of it, anyway, because he _will_ be alive one thousand years from now.

“You are here with a mortal, aren’t you?” La Muerte asks him, shaking him out of his thoughts. Lucifer nods and turns around to point a finger in the women's direction, their figures now sitting on a blanket next to Miss Lopez's grandfather's grave, laughing and eating _tamales_ as they imagine their lost relative is also doing in the same moment, mirroring them.

There is a pause.

“The older one will join me soon" the goddess tells him after a long moment – a power Lucifer doesn’t have, a knowledge he’s not sure he would want even if he could. And he doesn’t. He turns his head toward her sharply, eyebrows scrunching up into a scowl, wishing she’d kept quiet; but she smiles, because death is something she embraces without reveling in it. Lucifer is no god of death, no god _at all_, and living among humans has further stripped him of his ability to stay detached.

And what could dear, innocuous Rosalita have done to not end up in the Silver City instead? Well, that isn’t for him to know, and it certainly isn’t his place to judge.

What he _can_ do, instead, is to be there for his friend when the time will come, and vow to bring offerings on a grave in a small Mexican town once a year for the rest of his life, just in case.

“I have a feeling we'll meet again, then" he says, and La Muerte's expression softens once she realizes what he means.

“You took a liking to them? How stran- _Ow_!” Xibalba cries out when his wife smacks the back of his (literal) skull. She frowns, then looks at Lucifer again, tilting her head up to see from below her flower and candle-covered hat.

“Don’t worry, we won’t tell a soul" she tells Lucifer with a wink, her glowing eyes lighting up her face in the night, too-big eyelids covered in eyeshadow like the many sugary _calaveras_ left on graves and altars and like the painted faces of many celebrating humans trying to exorcise death with their joyful dancing. “Go back to your sweet humans, King of Hell.”

And he does.

He always will.

**Author's Note:**

> For reference, [this](https://bookoflife.fandom.com/wiki/La_Muerte) is La Muerte and [this](https://bookoflife.fandom.com/wiki/Xibalba) is Xibalba as depicted in the movie. Xibalba is the name of the underworld in the Ki'che' Mayan mythology while Mictlanteculhtli is the Aztec god of Death, and the character was conceived as a combination of the two.


End file.
